Follica Inc., is a privately held company that develops treatments for androgenetic alopecia (male or female pattern baldness) and other hair loss and follicle disorders, including severe acne. Today, the company announced that it has received $11 million in Series B financing, led by Polaris Venture Partners along with previous investors InterWest Partners and PureTech Ventures.
In addition to financing, the company will bring on several new board members and other team members.
“Polaris is thrilled to join PureTech and InterWest in helping to build Follica,” said Dr. Kevin Bitterman, a new Follica board member representing Polaris Venture Partners. “The cutting-edge biology on which the company was founded allows Follica to address hair loss and multiple other conditions with an entirely novel mechanism of action.”
Last year, Follica used licensed technology from the University of Pennsylvania to generate new hair follicles. It was the first time new hair follicles have been successfully generated in normal adult mammals.
Follica has also announced that the process for generating new hair follicles is now undergoing a human pilot study, which is good news indeed for hair loss sufferers who have been waiting for a truly effective cure. Daphne Zohar, managing director of PureTech Ventures said that “most of the technologies and things that are out there don’t come from real academic science. A lot of them are this late-night infomercial type of thing.”
Most hair loss treatments arrest hair loss or try to reactivate existing hair follicles. Creating brand new follicles had never before been accomplished. This breakthrough improves the possibility for hair loss to truly be reversed and opens the door for new and more effective treatment options for hair loss sufferers.
Last January, Follica launched with Series A financing of $5.5 million. The story was published online by Xconomy and to date has generated over 440 comments from readers expressing great interest in hair loss treatments. Clearly, the public is eager for companies like Follica to find a cure and it looks like success is just around the corner.
Learn more about Follica’s work and new round of funding at the following links:
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